THE
P RTAL
December 2011
Page 15
An Oxford Triumvirate
by Brother Sean of The Work
Surveying the
Senior Common Room of Oriel College we find other Churchmen who figure
prominently in the Oxford Movement, none more so than Joseph Blanco White, whom we previously
reviewed. John Keble and Edward Bouverie Pusey were men of name and rank in Oxford. Together with
Newman they would form the very nucleus of the Oxford Movement, giving it the intellectual vigour and
influence it would need to have such wide ranging effect within Anglican life, worship and ecclesial discipline.
Apologia
Newman recounts in his
Apologia of his bashfulness
in the Senior Common
Room in the presence of
such towering figures in the
very small world of Oxford
academia. Yet these three
men, who would stay in
amicable contact throughout
their whole lives, displayed
interests which went beyond
simply familiarity or personal sympathies.
of Newman. He went up to
Oxford at 14 and achieved
a double first by the time he
was 18. Keble’s controversial
Assize Sermon of 14 July
1833 on “National Apostasy”
was always considered by
Newman as the beginning of
the Oxford Movement.
Keble was Newman’s senior by almost a decade. Born
in Gloucestershire of a country vicar, he inherited his
fathers High-Church tendencies and had been a fellow
of Oriel since 1811. Edward Bouverie Pusey
was in many ways similar
to Newman. Born in 1800 he was a shy intellectual of
aristocratic stock, gaining his Oriel Fellowship a year
after Newman. Newman’s earliest memory of Pusey’s
appearance paints a picture of a rather eccentric
character: “His light curly head of hair was damp
with cold water which his headaches made necessary
for comfort; he walked fast with a young manner of
carrying himself, and stood rather bowed, looking up
from under his eye-brows, his shoulders rounded.”
However Newman was impressed by his seriousness
on matters of faith.
The Christian Year Regius Professor of Hebrew
Keble is perhaps most popularly known through his
collection of devotional poetry, The Christian Year,
which was published in 1827, went through some 158
editions, undeniably making it the single best selling
volume of poetry in the nineteenth century. Academically Pusey was very much a linguist. He
was appointed the Regius Professor of Hebrew in
1828. Aware of the liberal tenets which were being
espoused by radical German biblical scholars, he set
about learning German, spending several summers in
a number of German universities.
The providential interaction which Pusey, Newman
and Keble exchanged over years at Oriel College saw
them brought together in a common cause for the
inner renewal of Anglicanism.
Poetry would in fact become an important tool in the
dissemination of the doctrinal ideals of the Tractarians.
The Christian Year was intended to accompany the
Book of Common Prayer, providing a High-Church
commentary and devotional aid for prayer. The
historian Owen Chadwick claims that when people
met Keble they often found that his character was very
much like his Christian Year – modest, quaint and
unpretentious.
Above all Pusey became aware of the very real
dangers which rationalism were posing for theological
research, and in this role he would have a defining
influence in the Oxford Movement.
It is no surprise that in the university the adherents
of the Oxford Movement were in fact popularly known
as the Puseyites, which confirms Newman’s own
conviction that the contribution of men such as Pusey
Despite his unpretentiousness Keble was certainly and Keble was not only valuable from a theological
one of the University’s most illustrious men, and his perspective, but they also gave the cause for renewal
academic career even more extraordinary than that weight, authority and influence.